derealization

it is raining, I think.
I hear muffled sounds on my rooftop.

you are sitting across me, I think.
I see you in this room.

you ask me how I’m doing, I think.
I see your lips move.

i.
so let me tell you about the morning
when my hand did not feel like a hand;
how sunlight slipped through the middle of my palm,
and I could not recall if human bodies were always transparent.

ii.
let me tell you about the day when
my body was no longer a body,
how I named myself Ghost and realized I could breathe
only when I heard my name from the other side of the door.
(not the name I gave myself, but the one from my mother)

iii.
I floated over crowded streets and empty bridges;
I lived three feet trailing above the ground
and longed to feel the grass under my feet.
I lived behind a veil and could not tell
if my mother was real.

iv.
The fog was too thick and
I could not feel the sunlight.
I faded into it until
the world was concrete again.

I hear distant sounds.
it is raining, I think.

or are you talking?
I can tell no more.

I am alive, I think…

©Sharodi H
10th December, 2021
10:54 pm

[Note: Derealization is an alteration in the perception of the external world, causing sufferers to perceive it as unreal, distant, distorted, or falsified. Other symptoms include feeling as if one's environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring, and depth. It is a dissociative symptom that may appear in moments of severe stress.
Source: Wikipedia]